Helms' Vision of Freedom

Senator Mitch McConnell and Heritage Institute President Edwin Feulner both praise Jesse Helms for a career of work on behalf of "free markets and free people." Of course, if you were a right-wing Latin American dictator, Helms was also for you. For example, Alex Massie reminds us of Helms' support for Argentinian aggression against the Falklands Islands:

"The tilt toward Britain will destroy the coalition we must have if we are to prevent a Communist takeover of Central America," said North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, the lone opponent of a Senate resolution endorsing a pro-British policy.

Elsewhere in Republican presidents thankfully not being nearly as crazy or stupid as Helms in national security matters, he also "condemned President Nixon's historic 1972 trip to Beijing as 'appeasing Red China.'"

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/07/helms-vision-of-freedom/49097/